Customer Reviews

Chocolate (v. 1)

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I was pleasantly surprised when I received this book. It has 'Class' spelled all over it. It was written by the president of the ancient ( about 200 years old ) Maison Debauve & Gallais with the assistance of the staff of the chocolaterie. It is not one but two books, about one hundred pages each, in a chic case, bound by a brown ribbon. The pages are glossy and there are lots of photographs.
The first book deals with the history of chocolate in general and its introduction to France. It goes on to describe the Cocoa cultivation and production, all laced with beautiful photographs. The second part of the first tome deals with the French chocolate tradition in general and with the Debauve & Gallais chocolaterie in particular.
The second book I find even more interesting. It starts with the nutritional qualities and descriptions for each kind of chocolate. Then it lists the characteristics of chocolate beans, cocoa and chocolate from different growing regions and countries. This is followed by a guide on how to taste chocolate properly (you don't just munch it!), which is followed by the best section of all, the recipes. There are about forty recipes. Sometimes one buys a book and out of its 100-150 recipes maybe 5-10 turn out interesting or good. In this book all the recipes are handpicked. As a matter of fact I would rather have this as a recipe book than many others in the market. Recipes include:
Chocolate and hazelnut cake with kirsch
Grand Marnier cake
Walnut brownies
Chocolate and almond cake
Chocolate and praline tart
Chocolate and almond cookies
Moist chocolate spice cake
Dark chocolate mousse with goat cheese
Ganache filling
Almond and/or hazelnut praline
Truffles
Earl Grey palets
Fondant chocolate cake
Chocolate mousse
Chocolate and coffee charlotte
All recipes are in both Metric and Cups and spoons. A word of caution though: The measures in Cups and spoons are not always the same in all the recipes. For instance a stick of butter is given as 100g in some recipes and 80g in others. In other recipes 1/2 stick of butter is given as 75g which would make one stick 150g! I use Metric so I don't mind, but if you use Cups etc, maybe you should consider using Metric for these recipes, it is more accurate anyway and gives consistent results.